Sept. foreign entries to Japan at 2.2 mil., 96% of pre-pandemic level

Japan saw an estimated 2,184,300 foreign visitors in September, representing 96.1 percent of the figure for the same month in 2019 before the coronavirus outbreak, government data showed Wednesday.

The recovery rate was significantly higher than the previous month, and this was helped by an increase in visitors from countries of Southeast Asia and North America, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization.

Visitors from mainland China totaled 325,600 last month, or 39.8 percent of the pre-pandemic level four years earlier, but the figure was lower than the previous month by nearly 40,...